


Sleep, sleep with the lights on

by magpie_03



Series: Down the mountain range of my left-side brain [3]
Category: Twenty One Pilots
Genre: Caring Josh Dun, Death Cab for Cutie, Disability, Epilepsy, Explicit Language, Friendship, Hospitalization, Josh Dun & Tyler Joseph Friendship, Love, M/M, PTSD, Seizures, Sickfic, Song Lyrics, Trauma, epileptic!Tyler, internalized ableism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-18
Updated: 2017-11-18
Packaged: 2019-02-04 01:56:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12760767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magpie_03/pseuds/magpie_03
Summary: Funny how loving someone who’s chronically ill, who’s disabled, is always seen as an act of love, of selfless charity. No one ever asks disabled people what it feels like to love someone who’s able-bodied. What it feels like to love someone who enjoys that portion of normality you don’t have, that one bit of safety you’ll never have. The part you hate and love and miss, all at the same time.





	Sleep, sleep with the lights on

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everyone!
> 
> This is just a small update to the series. I thought I'd update more frequently with shorter fics like this one? What do you guys think? 
> 
> Happy reading!

It all started out as a regular Friday night. Tyler spent the night at Josh’s place, as per usual. Spending the weekend together was common sense, really. It was the only time where they found the time to make music together, with Josh working double shifts at the music store and Tyler being a sick person, full time.

It would have been a regular weekend to which Tyler would have looked forward to, but Josh had joined a gym. What had started as a joke between them – when Josh told him of his plans to join a gym Tyler promptly joked about Josh’s upper body strength – turned into reality, one Tyler couldn't process, much less accept. Josh stuffed his trainers and gym shorts into his rucksack and smiled at his phone which was buzzing with incomming messages. Tyler hides his hands inside the sleeves of his hoodie. Josh had only been at the gym for a few weeks and he was already in a whatsapp group, sending messages to other guys at the gym and whatnot. And there was this One Cute Girl. Tyler didn’t even know her name, he tried not to listen but he couldn’t help letting it all in. Normally he would have teased his best friend, would have laughed at Josh's new hobby and the inevitable, throbbing sense of self-consciousness you feel when you spend too much time with machines designed to make your body smaller while the mirrors make your body look bigger. Under other circumstances he would have remembered how awkward he had felt as a teenager when his world revolved around the gym and basketball tournaments. He would have remembered the smell, specific to each gym. He would have closed his eyes. He would have laughed and shrugged it off. 

Things were different now. The affection he felt for Josh, the gratefulness he felt for being at Josh’s place, the freedom, the possibility, and the music they made together – it all felt sacred, the way you feel when you light a candle at a church and the light is yours alone but you’re not alone with the shadow it casts. Now it was all dimmed by sudden pangs of jealousy. Envy so sharp and painful like the pain you feel when you stab your toe. When you bite on granite and a filling comes loose. Something that was once inside you, something that was a part of your self, an intrinsic part of your being, the one thing made you _you_ , long gone.

(And what was even worse was that Josh had asked him to come with him. Tyler hasn’t told him how much the comment “you can come with us and sit on a bench, it’s not a problem” hurt. How it ripped up old wounds. How it took time, endless weeks filled with nightmares and flashbacks, for his mind to grow back together because the thoughts, the staples that held it all together were gone. Josh would’ve apologized, he was sure. He would’ve been sorry. But Tyler didn’t tell him, and so no one was to blame, no one was there to feel sorry for himself, except himself. Sometimes Tyler wanted to scream with it all.)

 Tyler doesn’t know it yet but the jealousy he felt was longing. Somewhere deep inside him he knew that he missed his old, pre-epileptic self. He knew that he saw himself, his old self, inside his best friend, which was precisely what made the longing and the jealousy intolerable. He would’ve met Josh at the gym. He would’ve been one of the guys. But he’s never told Josh. He’s never told him how his feelings have bundled up inside of him. How they come in disguises, in a form that is hard, almost impossible to touch. Like a chestnut. From its shell you would never guess that there’s something inside smooth and round. Something that takes time to grow.

Tyler hides deeper insides his hoodie. “Off to the gym?” He forces his voice to sound neutral. He doesn’t know what he normally sounds like. He only knows his voice when he listens to recordings of songs (he didn't sound very intimidating, he had to admit) and when he watched videos of him having a seizure (which made him sound intimidating, but not the good kind). His hands disappear inside his sleeves. He scratches his wrists. That old habit.

 Josh looks up from his phone. He smiled the Josh smile, the one that made his eyes crinkle. Tyler's stomach jumps.   

 “Yeah, if that’s okay with you? How are you feeling? If you don’t feel up to it I can just stay here and ---“ Josh trails off. Tyler can hear the worry underneath Josh’s thoughts. He can feel it, the way you feel when you’re out on a frozen sea and the ice underneath your feet begins to crack.

“Nah, it’s fine. I’ll think of you sweating on the elliptical while I sit here and eat my way through an entire box of doughnuts.” He forces himself to smile. His body obeys. His mind doesn’t. The ice inside his mind begins to crack. Fissures.

“Yeah, and burn those calories for me...”

Josh makes a face as he shoulders his rucksack and darts out of the room. His steps echo inside Tyler. It was true, he bought an entire box of doughnuts for him to share with Josh. Now that he’s all alone his appetite is gone. His neurologist had put him back on Keppra -- second try -- and the medication made it hard to eat, to feel. To live. He couldn't stomach food, couldn't stomach his thoughts. There was a stomach inside his brain, one that devoured him whole. Tyler curls up on the couch, pulling the covers up to his chin, eyes glued to his phone. He pushes his earphones back in. The world shrinks to the size of a screen barely bright enough to illuminate the darkness all around. For a second Tyler believes all that was under his fingertips, all that he wasn’t saying out loud.

 

_How can I compete_

_with the world at your feet_

 

Funny how loving someone who’s chronically ill, who’s disabled, is always seen as an act of love, of selfless charity. No one ever asks disabled people what it feels like to love someone who’s able-bodied. What it feels like to love someone who enjoys that portion of normality you don’t have, that one bit of safety you’ll never have. The part you hate and love and miss, all at the same time. Tyler sniffs. His phone sings him to sleep, its electronic heart buried underneath sofa cushions.

 

...

 

Tyler wakes up. He’s lying on the floor. He has a searing headache and he can taste blood in his mouth. Unable to remember his name or who he is, he takes a few minutes to take it all in. This isn’t Josh’s living room anymore. He’s caught in an empty, wordless void. Language is far away. He remembers images, though. A pair of mocha eyes. The gym. A message via whatsapp. _Just call if you need me. Seriously. I’ll come back._

Another land, where words have meaning.

Tyler feels for his phone. It’s gone. His chest tightens. Panic settles in, like sand running through a sieve. Steady, filling him up. Impossible to move, impossible to think. His mind grinds to a halt. Thoughts screech like old brakes. _Phone. Just call. Phone._ They have talked through emergencies like this so many times. _Always keep your phone by your side. Always._ Tyler’s fingernails scratch over linoleum. His phone wasn’t there. It wasn’t there. Wasn’t there.

_J.... Jsh...._

Tyler is feeling for language like you fumble for a light switch. Language is far away. It all leaks through his mind, words and images, an impossible mush.

_Josh._

_Jsh......Jsss....Jsh..._

_Jsh......Js...._

_Josh._

There’s no phone, not on the floor, not underneath the table. Not underneath the sofa. His gaze only stretches so far. Epilepsy makes you see the world differently. A horizon of limited possibilities.

_Josh_

_Help me_

_Please_

_Josh..._

The world turns black.

 

...

Tyler wakes up. Again. His headache is getting worse. There's a bump. He doesn’t know it yet but he banged his head against the radiator, again. Tyler feels incredibly sick. He can’t move and from the massive, all-body migraine he can tell he’s had another seizure. The second one? The third one? How much time has passed? He just doesn’t know. He’s in a timeless capsule where clocks tick backwards.

_Heeeee...._

A cry. High-pitched. Guttural. Tyler’s throat is so dry he feels like he’s cutting glass with every syllable. Fissures, deep inside. Where words don't reach.

_Help me please_

_Josh_

_Help me_

He kicks the table in a desperate attempt. No phone. Just empty glass rattling. That useless body, that empty bag of bones.

_Please_

Silence. The world has turned its back on him, leaving Tyler to his mind, a great wordless distance. Language is far away. He has fallen off the face of the earth, into a different universe, where fish swim upstream. Where words lose their meaning.

The world goes black.

...

Tyler wakes up from a cold, clammy feeling all over his lower body. He shivers. His jeans are wet, from his thighs down to his knees. His face crumples. In some faraway portion of his mind he knows he’s supposed to lie on the sofa and read a book or watch Netflix and be Josh’s friend, not more, not less. But he just can’t. He just can’t. He grunts as his bladder empties itself for a second time. Epilepsy makes you understand how much we are truly owned by our bodies. How little control we have. Tyler can feel the urine pooling underneath his legs. He can’t hold it anymore. He can’t hold it and it’s everywhere. Warm and sticky. The smell, sweet and sour and just so sick. Not the good kind. The hospital kind. It’s everywhere. Tyler sobs and shivers. He feels defeated and humiliated. Betrayed by a body that fights each request he makes.

_Josh_

_Help me_

From the apartment downstairs he can hear the faint beat of music blearing. People laugh. Glass shatters. Footsteps. A floor below. Another world, altogether, where words are anchored in time. Saturated with color, meaning.

_Help me_

The world goes black.

...

Tyler wakes up for the third time. The fog has lifted enough for him to be able to think again. He squints his eyes.  Language is so far away. Tyler fishes for words like you fish for a coin that fell into a well. Fingers slipping on wet concrete while your thoughts bounce off the thick thick walls inside your head. They’re coming from far below, where light doesn’t reach.

_Tyler Joseph_

_Columbus, Ohio_

_23 years old_

_Seizure_

He repeats these words, again and again. Like a mantra to summon Josh back. A ladder to climb back up.

_Seizure_

_Seizure_

_Seizure_

_Josh_

_Help me_

_Josh..._

 

...

 

“SHIT---”

Tyler isn’t awake enough to see that Josh’s darting over. He isn’t awake enough to smell the gush of fresh air Josh brings into the flat, the excitement, the promise. He isn’t awake enough to see that Josh almost slips as he steps right into the pool of piss. He isn’t awake enough to notice how Josh lifts him up, slowly, carefully, as if his body was made of porcelain, the kind that breaks into a thousand pieces.

Fissures, deep inside.

He isn’t awake enough to notice how Josh starts to feel his jeans, the soaked bits. There are brown smears, too. Josh curses.

“Okay... okay... okay...”

Josh murmurs the same words, like a mantra. He scans Tyler's body, trying to assess the situation as best as he can. It's Friday evening, 10 PM. He left the house at 8. 2 hours. Should he really call 911? The last time he called an ambulance it ended in a complete and total disaster. Tyler had a cluster of seizures and the midazolam hadn’t worked. In he end, Josh had no choice but to call an ambulance and the paramedics that came wouldn’t listen. They didn’t look at Tyler’s medical ID and thus didn’t know anything about Tyler’s medical history, his current medications, his sensitivity to certain antiepileptic drugs. They came in, a group of strangers with deep, raveling voices. Hands in blue gloves. It took the emergency physician 15 minutes to get an IV going and by the time they had placed the needle, the emergency physician decided to inject VPA without knowing that Valproate was one of the drugs Tyler wasn’t supposed to take. After a few minutes (which feel like hours in the epilepsy universe) Tyler came out of the seizure ... and totally lost it. Josh could barely watch as the paramedics restrained his best friend, calming him down with a mechanical “you’re okay buddy” while Tyler fought and fought, trying to ward off hands in blue gloves that invaded his body, his privacy. After a heated discussion between Josh (who knew how much Tyler hated and feared hospitals) and the paramedics (who only saw the epilepsy, not a human being with feelings) they made the decision for Tyler: they wanted him hospitalized so they could monitor him more closely.

“Geeeeee..oooooo...meeeeee”

Tyler pleaded. Josh knew that language was difficult for Tyler when he came out of seizures. Speaking is hard when language is an abstract concept, when vowels and consonants are scattered all over your brain but not where they should be. Josh knew how helpless Tyler felt. He also knew what the look in the emergency physician’s eyes meant as he stared Tyler up and down. _Could be a stroke._

Josh figures the emergency physician has never had a seizure. He’s never felt fear that pure. He knows terror only from TV. Evening news, probably.

“We’ll take him in. I want him hospitalized.”

The word hospital alone was enough to set Tyler completely over the edge. He’s never told Josh but the many many days, weeks, months he spent at hospitals, sitting on plastic chairs, lying in hospital beds and strapped to stretchers didn’t do much to kill the fear he secretly felt. It only exacerbated it. Every time he went to the local epilepsy clinic for a routine appointment the fear came back alive. The moment he sent his foot in the clinic his heart started to race uncontrollably. When he went through the automatic doors he thought he was going to black out and it wasn’t even from a seizure. Tyler jumped at every sound, nervously eyeing the nursing station where a group of cheery nurses danced around a broken EEG machine, trying to get the wires to work but they were just as resistant as the neurons inside his brain. In the end the attending neurologist gave the computer a good kick with his foot and the machine started coming back alive, sputtering, blinking. Tyler would give anything to have a brain like that.

“Tyler Joseph, please.”

Tyler tried to smile (by hospital standards he was already hyper-polite because he didn’t complain or moan) but he was paralyzed with fear. He was scared, so scared he could feel the fear oozing out of him. He shook with anxiety when a nurse took blood. Needles. Medications. Fluorescent light, forever blinding. “We just need to get blood to check your medication levels, nothing happens without your consent here.” Tyler nodded and blinked away his tears. The nurse smiled at him and rubbed his arm in silent understanding.

During the appointment the neurologist lead him to a small office, a simple hospital room. Clinical in its anonymity. The neurologist listened attentively, noting down everything on a clean sheet of paper. The whiteness so pristine, promising. Innocent, until Tyler opened his mouth. Thoughts came alive, filling the white space with black ink.

No time for secrets now. He was coming out of the seizure. His mind was exposed to the world, raw and pulsing.

_Hospital. Hospital. Fear. Fear. (Josh). Fear._

“Yeah, we’ll take him in.”

Tyler began to cry hysterically. No, crying wasn’t a strong enough word. He screeched and clung to Josh’s legs, begging and pleading, screaming and kicking. Josh has never heard anybody cry the way Tyler did. It sounded like a wounded animal, like something that froze in headlights, flanks twitching, its furry body trembling.

“EEEEEEEEEEEEEEE....”

In the end they sedated Tyler, put him in plastic restraints, and loaded him into the ambulance, just like that. Josh will never forget the look on Tyler’s face when they took him in. His eyes were cloudy, his crying had dimmed down to muffled sobs, but the fear remained, flickering behind droopy eyelids. On and off. On and off. Josh climbed into the ambulance and took Tyler’s hand. His wrist looked so thin with the restraints on. There was ring of crusted blood and swelling where the emergency physician had tried to get an IV started and busted the vein. Tyler didn’t have the words to say how much his hand hurt. It was okay. They didn’t ask him anyway.

When they arrived at the hospital Tyler wouldn’t let go of Josh’s hand.

 _It’s okay, Tyler. You’re okay_.

In the ER, that transient room where body and machine become one, the attending neurologist picked a fight with the emergency physician. Hospital politics. The number of available beds versus the number of patients _that were referred to his hospital while there are four other ERs in the city goddammit_. No one bothered to explain anything to Tyler who didn’t understand and, in a response to the atmosphere that became increasingly heated and acute, began to lash out again. They transferred Tyler to a hospital bed and restrained him again, by his wrists and ankles. Parked in the hallway at the general neurology ward for everyone to see “because I don’t have a bed,” the neurologist barked while he ran back and forth, a white coat for too many sick bodies, sick brains.

 The hours ticked by while Josh waited for Tyler to become coherent again. He became an expert in ignoring the many people who stopped by just to watch Tyler who was still half-asleep. Josh still held his hand. He didn’t care how it looked. Tyler was his best friend. Nothing would ever change that.

 His own sobs mingled with the sounds of the ER, where the swish of white coats and the faint tripling of steps might as well be the flapping sounds of an owl spanning its wings. Fear: something that comes alive only at night, when the dark makes it hard to see. When there’s nothing to see. When there’s too much to see.

“Long night, huh?”

A night nurse offered him a cup of tea that smelled like old socks. Josh held the plastic cup to his cheeks. Hospital kindness is both disposable and indispensable. Josh could feel the hot water sloshing against the plastic rims. There was nothing to see. There was too much to see.  

 Tyler and Josh had nightmares weeks after that. They never told each other but they both woke up, sometimes, hearing the siren and thinking, knowing, believing _it’s coming_

_for_

_him_

_you_

_me_

_(fear)_

_(fear)_

_(fear)_

No time for secrets now. Josh’s mind turns on auto-pilot. He can hear the voice of Tyler’s neurologist in his head. Is there seizure activity? No? Is he conscious? Does he have a concussion? Any vomiting? Aspiration? Bruises? Bleeding? Josh answers each question with precise, short answers. Once a paramedic mistook him for a colleague because “your self-assurance is phenomenal.” Josh holds Tyler by his shoulders. He wet himself? He soiled himself? That’s all? Okay, no need for the ER. According to general ER philosophy patients can cry, shit, and piss at home too. Just don’t disturb an overworked neurologist who’s been on call for 23 hours. Josh takes a deep breath and turns to Tyler.

“Tyler? I’m going to clean you up, okay? It’ll take a minute.”

He’s trying his best to control himself but his voice is hiccup-y and cracking, like he’s about to cry. Bullshit. He’s crying. Still? Again? He just doesn’t know. He positions Tyler on the toilet and begins to undress him. He knows Tyler would hate to see himself like this. He also knows Tyler’ would hate it even more if he was a stranger, a paramedic with cold, unfeeling hands. It seems like a scene from another life when Tyler put the giant pack of disposable washcloths, hospital-style, into Josh’s bathroom. “Dude, don’t ask, my aunt gave them to me. Can you believe it? I’m 23, not 83!” They laughed at the giant pack. “They’ll last for a lifetime.”

Now he was secretly glad about the washcloths. Tyler's in need of a shower but Josh doesn’t dare to shower him just yet. Seizures in showers and bathtubs are a nightmare, not only because of the constant and imminent fear of drowning but also because it's incredibly hard to lift a body that is stiff, wet, and convulsing. Josh hums quietly while he runs a washcloth over Tyler’s body, cleaning him up quickly and, as he hopes, with dignity. He doesn’t pry or stare. He explains everything, however. “Alright, I’m done with your left leg, now moving on to the other one” and waits for Tyler to nod or else signal that he knows what’s going on. When he’s done he wraps Tyler in a towel. He looks so vulnerable, skin littered with goosebumps, lips a deep shade of purple. Josh could feel his insides twist. He could feel something come undone.

He dresses Tyler in a clean t-shirt and boxer shorts and leads him to the kitchen.

“Time for a late dinner and your evening meds, okay? Then we're done, I promise.”

He delegates Tyler to the kitchen table. Tyler folds his body on a chair, hands in his lap. His fingers were jerking in a rhythm of their own. Josh keeps an eye on them.

“Let’s see...”

There’s a bowl of leftover mashed potatoes in the fridge. Josh’s stomach rumbles in anticipation. He puts a hand on his stomach. He forgot how hungry he was. He rummages through the kitchen, looking for a spoon. His stomach grumbles louder, more angry than hungry now. He's too focused to notice.

“Alright, here we go...”

Josh starts to spoon mashed potatoes into Tyler's mouth. He knows he isn’t supposed to give Tyler food or drink after a seizure but he he wasn’t seizing anymore and he could see how hungry his best friend was, accepting each bite, chewing and swallowing diligently. Seeing Tyler like this doubled the guilt, the mere thought of Tyler lying in a pool of piss for hours, hungry, dehydrated, and unable to move eough to silence his body. His muscles obey.

“All done!”

Josh wipes Tyler’s mouth. He doesn’t stare, doesn’t pry. He’s still humming. Death Cab for Cutie, the intro to “I Will Possess Your Heart.” The bass line they both love. _So sick_ Tyler yelled when he first heard it and Josh laughed. That buzzing, warm feeling when you're in love with a person and a band, for different reasons. For the same reasons. 

“Our music,” he called it when Tyler was far away and the silence was too much. “Our music,” like music is that what remains when there’s nothing left. When there’s nothing to see. When there’s too much to see.

“Time for your meds.”

Tyler makes a face as Josh guides Keppra into his mouth with a teaspoon.

“I know, the Keppra tastes horrible. Just swallow it quickly, okay? It’ll be over soon.”

Tyler sniffs and swallows the rest of the pills. So many pills, day in, day out. Tyler sometimes jokes about his epilepsy and its constant need for supervision, “I’m a goldmine for my neurologist” but it was true. A wrong step and it all blows up. Tyler swallows and swallows. There’s a string of saliva dangling from his lower lip. Josh wipes his mouth for a second time. He knew Tyler hated it more like anything else in the world to be seen like this. He squeezes Tyler’s arm. 

_I know. I know. I know._

“Okay, now let’s---“

Josh stops in his movement. He was too busy mentally ticking off of things he still needed to do (get Tyler to sleep, clean the living room, wash Tyler’s clothes, eat) to notice that Tyler had grabbed his hands and nested his face inside them. The world shrinks to the size of a palm. Josh’s stomach drops. But not from hunger or fear. It was different. It was the same. Love.

When Tyler moved in, they had a long and calm conversation about what needed to be done, what could be done. Would their friendship last? Would it bend and break? Would it wither and die, like a plant? None of that had happened. When Tyler had looked at him, calmly and said, “Josh, I’m epileptic ... I don’t have anything to offer to you as a friend,” Josh didn’t know how to reply. Right in this moment, with Tyler’s face inside his hands, he knew the answer.

 

**Author's Note:**

> As always, this fic isn't intended as a medical study. It's solely based on personal experience.


End file.
